Convenience of the Kindle

Santa brought me a Kindle for Christmas and I've been reading on it since then.  I didn't realize how spoiled it made me until I started to read Cutting for Stone, which is thick in paperback.  It's nice to go back to a real book, but at the same time, it's bulkier and heavier than the Kindle.  And I didn't realize how much I had come to rely on the instant dictionary!  I found myself wanting to know what a word meant and looking for the arrow to navigate to the word for the dictionary.  But, I had to pull the word up on my iPhone dictionary app and wait for it to load.  It took so much time compared to the Kindle dictionary that I eventually gave up and used context clues to find the definition.  To say the least, I'll be sticking with the Kindle for a long time!

That spontaneous roadtrip I mentioned?  It happened!  Three of my puppy-crazed friends and I headed to Texas and spent the weekend playing with Cowboy (the puppy's name).  I'm sure that puppy was always being held or being pet!  We also lucked out and had beautiful weather so we played on the lake too! 

Fulfilling Week

This week, I gave myself the goal to keep the live recap in my 5 p.m. show.  In the past, my reporter either forgot to write it or the show got heavy enough to drop it, so I've never had the live recap in my 5 p.m. show.  I was determined to keep it!  I went into my show 27 seconds light, and dropped only four items.  I was so excited when I finished the show with the live recap that I was shaking when I walked out of the control room!




Tuesday's 10 p.m. show was the first election coverage I'd ever produced.  I was nervous at the beginning of my shift because I wasn't sure how our station planned on covering it (special reporters or graphics, etc).  As the day went on, I worked with my executive producer and we figured out how we were going to get the election coverage into the show.  What you don't see when you watch the show is all the manpower that was in the newsroom.  We had a team of people calling cities in the surrounding areas for the outcome or progress of their elections and the news director and another girl putting the graphics together. So much effort went into making our election coverage great.

A new addition was added to my family today.  Meet Cowboy Boots (he'll go by Cowboy).  He's an 8 week old yellow Labrador Retriever.  I haven't even met this puppy yet, but thanks to technology I feel like I'm getting to know him.  My dad and brother have been sending me pictures and videos all afternoon - but it still doesn't fill my desire to hold and pet this puppy!  Maybe a spontaneous roadtrip is in place?

Ridin' Solo and a Break from the Norm

On the journalism side of life:
This week, I produced my shows totally on my own!  The way we learn producing at the Missouri School of Journalism is by taking the Advanced Producing class.  A person who has already taken that class is our TA.  Over the course of 6-7 weeks, the TA goes from producing most of the show to giving the student producer all the responsibility for the show.  Last week, my TA only stepped in at the end when I didn't have no-live scripts written for my live-shot and I was busy with other things.  This week, my TA didn't show up for any of my shows and I'm proud to say the shows went off without a hitch!  Yesterday, I produced the 5 p.m. show and another student did the 6 p.m.  We chose this as the song of the day: "Ridin' Solo".


On the personal side of life:



Last week my mom had a big birthday and she didn't want a party.  Well, we didn't listen.  Dad and I planned a surprise party back in Dallas.  I flew in from Mizzou, my uncle came from Chicago, and my little brother Casey (well, he's not so little) drove up from Texas A&M.  We gathered at Fearing's Restaurant  downtown with some close family friends,  my brother Kevin and my aunt and uncle and yelled a loud 'SURPRISE' when she walked in.  And we all won the big bet: she started crying as soon as she realized what was going on!  It was the perfect surprise and for how sneaky she is, Mom didn't know a thing about it!

I love to cook and bake, but with my schedule, I don't get to do it that often.  But last weekend, when I returned home from my Texas trip, I made time to try a new recipe.  I'd never tried to make fortune cookies before but I found a recipe from Martha Stewart on a link the Cooking Channel tweeted that looked doable.

This is what they looked like in the oven.  The recipe says they're meant to be large fortune cookies, and they spread out even further and thinner in the oven.  You can only bake a few at a time, because when you pull them out of the oven, you have to shape them quickly before they harden!

When they're done, the edges might look burnt, but they're not.  The cookie has a sweet almond flavor that's not overpowering with a satisfying crunch.  They looked nice (while they lasted) and would be great for a party!

Cooking and baking, especially baking, is a stress-reliever for me, but bad for my waist-line.  So I've decided to work out (which my friends know is a big deal for me) a couple times a week, and reward myself with time to bake.  So far this semester it's worked... we'll see if I keep it up.

Generational Differences

Last fall, I got a text message from my dad asking, "What do you consider the end of the day?"

"11:59:59,"I typed back.

"Ha! That's what the speaker said you'd say!"

Nancy Barry was speaking to my dad's company, explaining to them differences between their generation and mine and how they should be prepared to deal with new hires out of college. My dad's company was using me as a guinea pig to see if she was right - apparently I proved her point, which was that my generation considers the end of the day to literally be the end of the day due to the current digital world. My dad was so impressed with her that he bought a signed copy of her book for me: When Reality Hits: What Employers Want Recent College Graduates to Know. It wasn't exactly what I was expecting in my stocking at Christmas - I'm not one for reading self-help books in my spare time, I prefer historical fiction or chick literature (proven by the list of books on my Kindle) - but I feel like I'm getting something from reading her book.


One of her main points is that someone right out of college looking for a job needs more than a good resume. She insists that "soft skills" will help set you apart from everyone else being considered. Out of a list of eight soft skills, I feel these two are ones I'm learning at KOMU while producing:

#6: "Demonstrated ability to work independently and be a team player."
As a producer, I assemble a newscast on my own but also take input from my executive producer. I work with reporters for stories for the rundown, graphic artists for over the shoulder images (OTSs) and maps, and directors to get the show on-air. Those are just a few of the people who act as a team to put together a newscast. In class, we were discussing that making everyone feel like a team is one of the most important parts of the newscast. It motivates the members to do their best so the newscast ends up being the best it can be.

#7: "Ability to work in a high-volume, face-paced environment; to multitask; and to meet deadlines."
I think anyone who works in a newsroom would agree that it's a face-paced environment. There are days when not a lot of news is going on. Other days, there's so many stories, you have to cut things out of the rundown to be anywhere near on-time before going into the show. Multitasking is part of a producer's job: you write stories for the newscast while juggling reporters and their questions and putting the details into the rundown (anchor reads, cameras, OTSs, etc.). And a producer has a daily deadline - the time the show airs! "The show must go on" and you have to be ready for it.

I'm about one-third of the way through the book. It's interesting reading about HR and managers perspectives on hiring 20-somethings and seeing the generational differences between growing up in the digital age and growing up in the age of a single computer that takes up an entire room (according to my dad).

#KOMUcampout aka a Producing Marathon

#snowlycow I can't believe I survived "Winter Storm 2011" as it came to be called at KOMU. We had a massive winter storm this week: Monday brought ice, Tuesday dropped 17.5 inches of snow, and Wednesday and Thursday blew winds and negative temperatures. During this time, I had 4 shifts at KOMU (3 producing shifts, 1 web shift). People with shifts during that time decided it was better to sleep at the station than try to drive in white-out conditions, and so came to be the Twitter hashtag #komucampout.

I arrived to KOMU around 10:30 p.m. Monday night to produce Tuesday's morning show. During this shift, I wasn't just a producer. Here's the list of the jobs I completed (I probably looked like a chicken running around with my head cut off.):

1. Producer of the rundown and writing stories.
2. Phone Answer-er for people with questions about the storm.
3. Phone Caller to St. Louis and Kansas City for how they prepared for the storm and what it looked like there.
4. Google Map operator to get our live reporter to an apartment fire.
5. Social Media Guru getting the news of the fire on Twitter.
6. Skype Coordinator with our five Skype reporter teams in five locations around mid-Missouri.
7. Website poster putting up important information before the storm hit at 6 a.m.

When we were .26 seconds from being off-air (after a 2.5 hour long show), we got a text message from the news director to keep going for two more hours! We took a 15 minute breather to gather more information and give everyone a quick break. Our five Skype reporter teams went inside to warm up, our two live reporters and their truck operators got in the truck to warm up, and the anchors took a bathroom and snack break.

When we went back on air, we did a regular block with news stories but ditched that format at the next commercial break. We decided that viewers were staying tuned to our channel to hear about the storm and how different parts of Missouri were being hit. They might care about what was happening in Egypt right then, but they were mostly concerned with the storm. For the next two hours, we pitched between the weathermen, the live reporters, the Skype teams, and the anchors who shared information we were getting from viewers on Facebook and Twitter. It was a marathon producing session and we flew most of that time by the seat of our pants, but at the end, everyone who was working on that show felt that we had come through for the viewers and given them what they wanted.

Finally, at 9 a.m. the show was over. I checked in with the Skype reporter teams and crashed on an air mattress in the conference room for three hours.


When I awoke, I received the news that my dog, Bo (1999-2011), had died that morning. It was the roughest news I could have gotten during this stressful time at the station. He'll forever be remembered as the dog who loved to be pet for hours, who would slip and slide on the wood floor while chasing a tennis ball much to the dismay of Mom, and who was a diver for rocks in the Allegheny River.

I had to keep working so that I wouldn't break down crying (although it was occasionally inevitable). I was supposed to produce the 10 p.m. news on Tuesday. On a daily basis, we have two live reporters to manage. But, this time, we had two live reporters and our five Skype teams. The teams had iPhones or computers with Skype (a video-conferencing program) on them. I started a Skype video chat with the team (either one or two people) that was going on-air next and the director would broadcast the computer screen. The Skype teams would report the road conditions of the town they were in (Fulton, Jefferson City, Lake Ozark, Boonville, or Moberly) and what kind of precipitation they were getting. By adding these five teams, it was way too much for one producer to handle. So my TA produced the 10 p.m. while I managed the Skype reporter teams for the two newscasts from 5-6:30 p.m. and the 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. newscasts. I was coordinating who was going when, testing out the wireless signal at the new locations they went to for every show, and getting them set up to go on-air. I ended up charging my iPhone between every show. By the end of the day, I had 'produced' almost eight hours of Skype calls. After the 10 p.m. show, I had to pass on my Skype Coordinator responsibilities to the two student producers of Wednesday's morning show. I strangely felt like I was giving up on "my teams" because I had been working with them all day. But I needed to sleep and slept like a rock for eight hours in the conference room.

Wednesday, I produced the 5 p.m. show. My TA, Maggie, was on the Fulton Skype team so she was more tired than I was because she had to be awake for hits during the morning show! I had the most independence producing this show that I've had so far. Maggie let me produce until 4 p.m. when she stepped in to help me tie up the loose ends I was missing. I boothed the show for the first time, which was exhilarating. I backtimed the show and discussed which stories to drop with Maggie and she either agreed with me or pointed me in a new direction. The show ended on time and with no major issues! It was a great way to end #komucampout.

I had to get out of the station after all that craziness. I slept in my own bed Wednesday night and returned to the station Thursday morning for my web shift. I created and added to four different web slideshows of pictures our viewers sent in. I added to Blizzard Kids, and created Blizzard Animals, Snow Drifts, and Neighbors Helping Neighbors. I posted these slideshows on our website and on our Facebook page. During the storm and our coverage of it, we got 170,000 hits on our Facebook page and more than 1,000 new friends. These new friends will allow us to increase our viewer base because they will have our stories show up on their news feed.

Bo and I playing fetch with the tennis ball during the February 2010 snow in Texas.

It was hard to make the Blizzard Animals slideshows because a lot of the photos were people playing with their dogs in the snow. All I could keep thinking about was how last winter it snowed at home in Texas, and Bo loved to chase the snowballs. He also was color blind, which we only figured out when he couldn't find his tennis ball in the snow!

Video of Bo trying to find the tennis ball in the snow.

While it was a difficult time to be at the station when all I wanted was to be home with my family, it was an intense growing period. I learned how many roles I could fulfill and still stay calm (although highly caffeinated). I learned that I am almost ready to take over the job of producing a show on my own (which I will be doing in the next few weeks). I also learned how well a bunch of people can come together to get the best information possible to viewers - it was amazing to see the teamwork. Overall, I'm glad I got to attend #komucampout as it was a unique experience I'll never be able to replicate.